British icon behind Teletubbies and Tots TV calls out "huge loss" of children's TV to YouTube: "Algorithms are quick, cheap and easy"

This article first appeared in Radio Times Magazine.

There used to be a sense of occasion with children’s television. At its best, it could be a bonding experience, equal to sharing a great children’s book. From Clangers and Bagpuss to Rosie and Jim and Blue Peter, our shows were some of the best in the world.

Today, that landscape has completely changed. It is dominated by YouTube, where Cocomelon is one of its biggest children’s programmes. There is nothing nourishing about this show. It’s simply a distraction, pleasing to the eye. I don’t know of any children who are actually invested in the story. There’s no development. It has all the feeling of an algorithm.

Our company, Ragdoll Productions, specialises in programmes for young children. It was established in 1985 and over subsequent decades enjoyed hits with shows like Pob’s Programme, Rosie and Jim, Brum, Tots TV, In the Night Garden, Dipdap and Twirlywoos. We used everything from animation to puppets and, in the case of our most famous creation, Teletubbies, performers in suits who moved around an outdoor space, greeting each other warmly, reassured by a chuckling baby’s face in the sun.

Featuring the antics of Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po, Teletubbies was a global – if hugely controversial – hit. Despite the doubters who complained about babbling and repetition, it was adapted in more than 150 countries. That’s because it was child-centred. Teletubbies was accused of dumbing down, but it was rooted in a huge amount of research on the way that children view the world and how they use their senses. That was revolutionary.

We were also responding to a changing world, transformed by new technology. Suddenly there were mobile phones, and all kinds of technological devices in the home. So, the Teletubbies –who famously had televisions in their tummies and antennae on their heads – were technological babies in fluorescent colours, living in a technological superdome with its custard machine, Noo-Noo vacuum cleaner and panel of intriguing knobs and switches.

The infrastructure that made this and other great shows of the time possible – with all the imagination, generations of skill, creativity and risk-taking they entailed – has been systematically devalued and dismantled over the decades. Now it has virtually disappeared.

How have we got here? There have been many missteps. Channel 4 were the first to stop originating children’s programmes. In 2007, restrictions were introduced with the intention of limiting children’s exposure to advertising of food and drink products high in fats, salt and sugar. The advertising revenue lost was the excuse needed for commercial broadcasters like ITV to abdicate responsibility for originating new children’s programmes, leaving everything unchallenged to the BBC.

Television, is, above all, a storytelling medium. But origination comes at a high cost. It requires trained and dedicated professionals who can work in an environment where a world of vulnerable characters can be created and engaging stories can be developed, and where children’s own stories and cultures can be respected and celebrated.

In the Night Garden for example – still a comforting favourite after 19 years, with archive episodes on iPlayer – could not be made today, not only because of the high cost but because of the craft needed to create its comic rhymes, quirky characters and fantasy spaces. But what high value these fantasy spaces represent. Over the years, how many children has it reassured at bedtime? How many parents has it helped?

Algorithms deny such differences. They rely on sameness and so it has become convenient for broadcasters all over the world to relinquish responsibility to them, abdicating children’s culture to YouTube. What after all are the uses of imagination when today’s world can provide such certainty and cost savings? Algorithms are quick, cheap and easy.

This is a huge loss for our children and our society. The BBC still flies the flag with hits like Bluey – co-funded with ABC in Australia – but where is the content for older children? Where are the dramas and the shows that we can all enjoy as a family? I don’t think it’s good enough that the BBC adapts one Julia Donaldson book a year.

Children’s programmes have the capacity to export. Teletubbies, for example, brought in revenue from all over the world, not least from the USA, demonstrating that the traffic need not only be one way.

MPs on the culture, media and sport committee are currently looking into the future of children’s programming. But I’m not optimistic that this will lead to significant change. Those of us who have campaigned for over 30 years have seen such investigations come and go. The situation has only deteriorated.

Dazzled by the speed of children’s absorbed exploration of the new technological landscape, there has, so far, been no consideration of investing equally in content. What is needed is an acknowledgement of the importance of entertaining and reassuring stories. No matter the cost, we are all so much poorer without it.

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